NFL exploring new Thanksgiving Eve game as early as this season
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NFL exploring new Thanksgiving Eve game as early as this season
The NFL is exploring adding a Thanksgiving Eve game to its football feast that already includes the traditional Thursday afternoon doubleheader and a Black Friday game, a league spokesman confirmed. That new game could join the schedule as early as the 2026 season.
By far the most popular programming on TV, the NFL has a slate of four games it is selling this offseason. The idea of putting a game on a Wednesday could be enticing to a streamer or a network and, for the league, worth tens of millions of dollars.
A source briefed on the potential plans told The Athletic that if the league does play on this day, the two teams will likely be coming off of byes.
The league is in the midst of renegotiating its 11-year, $110-plus billion TV contracts with CBS, NBC, Fox, ESPN and Prime Video. The agreements are only three seasons old, but the NFL has opt-outs at the end of the decade that it is using to leverage even greater payments.
-THE ATHLETIC
By far the most popular programming on TV, the NFL has a slate of four games it is selling this offseason. The idea of putting a game on a Wednesday could be enticing to a streamer or a network and, for the league, worth tens of millions of dollars.
A source briefed on the potential plans told The Athletic that if the league does play on this day, the two teams will likely be coming off of byes.
The league is in the midst of renegotiating its 11-year, $110-plus billion TV contracts with CBS, NBC, Fox, ESPN and Prime Video. The agreements are only three seasons old, but the NFL has opt-outs at the end of the decade that it is using to leverage even greater payments.
-THE ATHLETIC
-
Sold My Soul
- Posts: 17,753
- Joined: Fri Sep 04, 2015 9:08 pm
- Location: Somewhere In Time
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The league’s ongoing push to position more of its 272 regular-season games in standalone broadcast windows, a central feature of the 2025 schedule, will take on even greater prominence in the forthcoming season. Among the moves that are either set or are under active consideration:
A potential move of the league’s kickoff game involving the Seahawks to a Wednesday slot. That move from the traditional Thursday placement would allow the NFL’s first regular-season game in Australia to happen on that day, and it would also help manage the significant time differences between that country and the U.S. The NFL also cannot play on Friday night or Saturday after a Sept. 9 opener this year—as the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961 precludes pro football games from happening at those times, beginning with the second Friday of September and continuing through the second Saturday in December.
A possible expansion of the traditional Thanksgiving lineup—a core part of the regular-season and one that reached unprecedented viewership in 2025—to include a Thanksgiving Eve game in 2026.
A record nine international games in 2026, up from seven in 2025. The locations for those games—three in England, and one each in Germany, Spain, France, Australia, Mexico, and Brazil—have been finalized. So, too, have the home teams for each of those contests. The 49ers will also be the road team for the Australia game against the Rams. Some of the international games could be part of a set of four contests that the NFL regained control of and is selling the rights to as part of its complex and newly closed equity deal with ESPN parent company Disney.
The core reasoning behind the various moves is rather straightforward. The elevated number of international games feeds directly into the NFL’s quickly growing global ambitions. The other broadcast switches, meanwhile, offer the chance to take a Sunday afternoon game that might draw an average of about 20 million viewers and add at least 10 million to that figure—if not more.
-FOS
A potential move of the league’s kickoff game involving the Seahawks to a Wednesday slot. That move from the traditional Thursday placement would allow the NFL’s first regular-season game in Australia to happen on that day, and it would also help manage the significant time differences between that country and the U.S. The NFL also cannot play on Friday night or Saturday after a Sept. 9 opener this year—as the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961 precludes pro football games from happening at those times, beginning with the second Friday of September and continuing through the second Saturday in December.
A possible expansion of the traditional Thanksgiving lineup—a core part of the regular-season and one that reached unprecedented viewership in 2025—to include a Thanksgiving Eve game in 2026.
A record nine international games in 2026, up from seven in 2025. The locations for those games—three in England, and one each in Germany, Spain, France, Australia, Mexico, and Brazil—have been finalized. So, too, have the home teams for each of those contests. The 49ers will also be the road team for the Australia game against the Rams. Some of the international games could be part of a set of four contests that the NFL regained control of and is selling the rights to as part of its complex and newly closed equity deal with ESPN parent company Disney.
The core reasoning behind the various moves is rather straightforward. The elevated number of international games feeds directly into the NFL’s quickly growing global ambitions. The other broadcast switches, meanwhile, offer the chance to take a Sunday afternoon game that might draw an average of about 20 million viewers and add at least 10 million to that figure—if not more.
-FOS